The Blackhawks locked up their 21-year-old centerpiece on a five-year, $75 million deal, then delivered the Kane reunion Bedard openly campaigned for — though both stars will open the season on the mend.
The centerpiece signs
The Chicago Blackhawks did not wait to see how the rest of the rebuild breaks before paying its centerpiece. One day after Connor Bedard turned 21, the club signed him to a five-year, $75 million contract extension carrying a $15 million cap hit through 2030-31 — the third-highest average annual value in the NHL, trailing only Anaheim's Leo Carlsson and Minnesota's Kirill Kaprizov. Bedard earned it the hard way for a former No. 1 pick on a losing team: career highs of 30 goals, 45 assists and 75 points in 69 games, becoming the third player in franchise history to reach 30 goals at age 20 or younger, joining Jonathan Toews and Eric Daze. It is the kind of number that says a franchise has chosen its identity for the decade.
The wish, granted
Two days after signing, Bedard sat down for his first meeting with reporters and set the bar plainly: the club wants to be a playoff team, and that's our only goal. He talked up the summer's other moves — chiefly the acquisition of defenseman Bowen Byram — but saved his real enthusiasm for a player who wasn't yet under contract. Asked about a possible reunion with Patrick Kane, then one of the top free agents left on the market, Bedard openly lobbied, saying he couldn't imagine Kane's first game back and how much juice it would bring. Three days later, he got exactly what he asked for. Patrick Kane rejoined the Blackhawks on a two-year, $16 million deal, returning to the city where he won three Cups and became the highest-scoring American-born player in NHL history.
Both of them open the season hurt
The reunion that headlines Chicago's offseason will not actually take the ice for a while. Bedard's own recovery from shoulder surgery is expected to take approximately four months, pushing his return toward midseason. Kane, a three-time Stanley Cup champion who left in the 2023 trade to the Rangers and spent three years in Detroit, had left shoulder surgery of his own on July 8 and was given a four-month timetable, which lands him back around early November. With the league expanding to an 84-game schedule and starting in late September, that means the franchise's future and the most beloved piece of its past will both open the season in rehab. The playoff drought Bedard keeps talking about — six years, dating to Kane's first departure — will have to survive a slow start before either of them can do anything about it.